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Thursday, February 3, 2011

A tough morning (a bawdy tale of toilets)

So last night was not as bad as the night before. I only had to get up once to let Piper go out and sprinkle the night with diarrhea, at 1:30 a.m., and it was not snowing, so that is practically miraculous.

However, my morning...

Let me preface this by saying that the contractors took the toilet out of the kids' bathroom yesterday. So the one bathroom that has a working shower has no toilet, sort of like the European salle de bain. That is the kids' bathroom. Our bathroom (Shawn's and mine) has a working toilet and a wet saw for cutting tile and a bunch of tools, tiles and sponges. And by "a bunch" I mean you really have to watch out when you try to turn around in there.

Laura's room, because she has the honor of being away at college, is filled wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling with tools... tools on carts, tools in boxes, tools in cases... etc. After the first day of work, I told Shannon that they'd cut a hole in her closet to get to the plumbing in the kids' bathroom. She said, "I guess I'll move into Laura's room until this is over."

I said, "I do not think you will want to do that."

"What?" she asked, "Do you really think Laura would care that much? All I'm going to do is sleep in her bed."

"I don't think you will be able to do that," I informed her. Then she and David went upstairs, and they immediately began taking pictures on their phones and sending them to Laura. In the end, I received a forlorn text from Lu stating, "Please stop sending me pictures of my room like that. It makes me sad."

But yesterday, when the guys took out the toilet, they set it in a rubber bin in David's room. I texted a picture of that sight to Laura and it cheered her up considerably.

Anyway, all this verbiage is just to show that there is a certain discombobulation in the bathroom situation over here. Last night Shannon and DJ got home from college at about 10:45 p.m, only to find the toilet rearrangement. The powder room on the main floor has been getting a lot of use lately. A lot.

So... when I was up with Piper at 1:30 a.m. I decided to use that powder room on the main floor while I was waiting for him, and I noticed it was not flushing properly. I went back to bed.

In the morning (Jon had school, so it was a 6:30ish kind of morning), I needed to use the bathroom while Jon was eating his breakfast, but I remembered that the toilet down here had not been working. I tried an experimental flush which did not go so very well. So I headed upstairs to our bathroom to get the plunger. Since Shawn was not up yet, I tried to tread quietly. And since our bathroom opens into our bedroom, I was also trying not to turn on lights.

Dawn was starting to glimmer with signs of sunrise, so I thought, "If I can just get the window shade up, I'll be able to see well enough to find the plunger in the closet next to the toilet." I took hold of the shade and tried to give it a gentle tug to send it upward, but something went wrong and it flew out of my hand and loudly snapped upwards with a THWACK. I jumped, very startled, and tried to catch my breath. My right hand came down to steady my tired, unbalanced body... and felt something softer and warmer than a wet saw, something which I suddenly discerned, in the gray glow of dawn, was a man on the toilet. I began to scream in abject terror, even as I recognized my own husband, the very one I was trying so hard not to disturb. We stared into one another's wide eyes and I screamed the primordial scream of death.

It was an epic fail in the "do not disturb" book.

When I finally got myself under control, although I was still shaking and my heart was pounding, I heard him ask, "What are you doing, anyway?"

"I am getting the plunger to fix the downstairs toilet," I replied, but the dignity I tried to muster utterly forsook me.

Later that morning, while trying to get a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, I sent a whole pumpkin pie tumbling to the floor. The pie had been balancing precariously on top of four gallons of milk, and I had even posted a note on the refrigerator for people to watch out for it. But I forgot (or maybe someone moved my note?), and I pulled out the milk, and the pie came tumbling down. Piper ate quite a bit of it, which probably does not bode well for my sleep schedule yet again tonight. Also, I screamed for the second time of the day (and it was only about 7:30 a.m.), but honestly, it wasn't much compared to the fright I'd had earlier. It's funny how things can attain perspective in light of one another.

When Shannon came down to breakfast she smiled and said, "Hey Mom. Tough morning?"